tar sands pipeline

Enbridge's Line 2 **Line 67 tar sands** pipeline has leaked an estimated 600 gallons of crude oil at its pump station near Viking, Minnesota. Line 2 was built in 1956 and has a history of spills. Regulators ordered Enbridge to reduce its Line 2 operating pressure in October 2010 following the company's Kalamazoo River tar sands spill.

The Enbridge Viking pump station also receives oil from the Alberta Clipper (aka Line 67 pipeline) that carries heavy crude oil and tar sands bitumen from the Alberta tar sands region south from Hardisty to Superior, Wisconsin and refineries in the midwestern United States. It is unclear whether the product that spilled was tar sands-derived diluted bitumen. According to a link provided by Enbridge subsequent to this story's original posting, Line 2 begins in Edmonton and carries petroleum products, including crude oil, from Edmonton to Superior. Both lines pass through the Viking pump station.

The U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center website reports the details of the incident, which happened last night: “1044848”,”1044848”,”1044848”,”INCIDENT”,”23-APR-2013 17:09”,”THECALLERREPORTEDTHAT A LEAKON A PRESSURETRANSMITTERRESULTEDIN A RELEASEOFCRUDEOIL.”,”FIXED”,”EQUIPMENTFAILURE”,”23-APR-2013 15:45”,”18060 203THSTNW”,”MN”,”VIKING”,”MARSHALL”,”ENBRIDGEENERGY”,”SOIL”,”OIL: CRUDE”

DeSmog was alerted by the Indigenous Environmental Network, which is en route to the spill site to gather more information. Stay tuned for updates to this post below.

**This story originally reported that Enbridge Line 67 tar sands pipeline suffered the leak, but Enbridge subsequently confirmed the spill was on Line 2. DeSmog regrets the error.**

In 2007, when President Obama proposed a carbon tax on imported Canadian tar sands oil, the Canadian oil lobby and the Conservative government threatened to start sending their crude overseas to countries like Russia and China with weaker environmental standards.

A big problem with this plan is that currently there is no way to actually move tar sands oil onto a tanker and ship it overseas. So the threat posed against the United States by Canada's pro-tar sands lobby was, and continues to be, an empty one.

This is why it is so important that we stop any and all ability for tar sands oil to be pumped off our coasts and sent to overseas export markets.

Whether that be via the Northern Gateway pipeline, Kinder Morgan or whatever other creative ways the oil lobby comes up with to diversify the tar sands oil market.

This is a guest post by Janet MacGillivray, Tar Sands Blockade Legal Coordinator And Strategic Liaison

Less than one week before the U.S. election, Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein has been arrested for literally walking the walk in her stance against dirty oil and corporate politicking. Dr. Stein was detained while standing with peaceful Tar Sands Blockade protestors entering the 38th day of the Texas standoff against TransCanada Corporation’s Keystone XL export pipeline. She awaits processing at the Wood County jail.

In the devastating wake of Hurricane Sandy, which has killed at least 120 people in the U.S. and the Caribbean, and caused “almost incalculable” billions of dollars in damages, Dr. Stein traveled to Texas to re-supply tree sitters in Winnsboro, Texas along the southern route of the Obama Administration’s fast-tracked tar sands freeway.

“I’m here to connect the dots between super storm Sandy and the record heat, drought, and fire we’ve seen this year – and this Tar Sands pipeline, which will make all of these problems much worse. And I’m here to connect the dots between climate devastation and pipeline politicians – both Obama and Romney – who are competing, as we saw in the debates, for the role of Puppet In Chief for the fossil fuel industry. Both deserve that title. Obama’s record of 'drill baby drill' has gone beyond the harm done by George Bush. Mitt Romney promises more of the same.”

In East Texas, where pipelines are more a fact of life than a sight for sore eyes, defenders of property rights are teaming up with environmentalists to oppose TransCanada Corporation’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

TransCanada, a Calgary-based company, is proposing 1,959 miles of pipeline destined to run from the tar sands mines of Hardisty, Alberta, by way of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and concluding its journey at Port Arthur, Texas refineries. The Keystone XL pipeline project is promoted as a promising solution for increased oil access and security for the U.S., which imports some 9 million barrels of oil per day.

The Keystone XL pipeline differs from the many other pipelines crisscrossing Texas since it is foreign-owned. TransCanada is still awaiting approval from the State Department to build it.

Perhaps underestimating Texans’ fierce ethic of individual property rights, TransCanada has taken a heavy-handed approach to gathering local support for this project, according to coverage in the Los Angeles Times. In growing numbers, East Texans are becoming unnerved by a foreign company showing up on their properties unannounced, dictating terms and sending out land agents with complicated easement agreements ready for the landowner to sign. (TransCanada isn’t quite so kind in South Dakota, where the company has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against property owners in an effort to condemn land under “eminent domain.”)

The U.S. State Department notified a coalition of environmental groups last week that it has denied their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for correspondence between the agency and a former presidential campaign staffer of Hillary Clinton’s, who, in his new role as oil industry lobbyist, is seeking Secretary of State Clinton’s approval for a tar sands oil pipeline.

The State Department denied the FOIA request on the grounds that the groups had not “reasonably described the records [they sought] in a way that someone familiar with Department records and programs could locate them” and cited the groups’ request for a waiver on the fees associated with the processing of the FOIA as reason to deny their request.

Marcie Keever, legal director for Friends of the Earth argues that the State Department did not have legitimate legal grounds to deny the FOIA request.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.